Originally Posted by
Eroica 
To answer your question, its not science. To say these findings are the result of prayer and optimism is faulty logic. The explanation can be as simple as people who are happier and have better support networks live longer. "God" isn't really doing anything for his chosen ones.. and even if he is its up to the believers to prove it. In any case, the line between "hoping" and "praying" isn't always clear. And many atheists will sometimes pray, "just in case" in situations involving health.
Also, most people who have gotten terminal diseases fight pretty hard. I think every mom who has a child who is diagnosed with an illness will pray pretty damn hard for them to recover. Unfortunately, millions of really optimistic kids still die with their parents praying beside them. The power of prayer as medicine is really not that convincing to me.
Also, we should also be aware that circumstances can be as much responsible for pessimism as the other way around.
Well, first of all it IS science under sciences own definition, these studies weren't done without taking all the variables you mentioned into account and they obviously were repeated several times in order to get a statistical average, so, they follow all the rules of scientific experimentation.
Also, you're putting words in my mouth, I never said that 'god' was doing anything, I said that direct prayer in a controlled experiment (to me prayer simply means controlled intention, it's a practice as ancient as the hills and prayer is simply the modern pop offshoot of that neuro-psychological process) could be measured by significant averages to work in a controlled experiment over non prayer. The device by which that works is open to interpretation, it could even be a statistical novelty, but it's very doubtful since the experiments on this have been repeated many times over.
The power of prayer as medicine? No, it is an aid, it can help, it helps to have other sentient beings wishing good things for you, it helps to be loved, to FEEL loved, and psychologically (and possibly morphogenetically as these experiments suggest?) it raises the probability of recovery by maybe ten to twenty percent. Not talking about miracles here, though, that is open to definition too...